Court Hears Defendant's Statement On Car-jack Killing

December 05, 2000|By ERIC RICH; Courant Staff Writer

As the defendant sank into his chair, and the parents of the man he is accused of killing hurried from the room, a court official at Jamaal Coltherst's capital felony trial Monday read aloud a signed statement that the defense had hoped jurors would never hear.

It was the last of three accounts that Coltherst, an East Hartford teenager, provided police after his arrest Oct. 24, 1999, and it detailed what he said was his role in the kidnapping and killing 10 days earlier of an Avon man in East Hartford.

Coltherst told investigators he and a high school friend, Carl Johnson, were dressed in black, armed with a handgun and looking to steal a car. They spotted a Honda Accord pulling into a parking lot outside Kahoot's Cafe and Grille.

The driver dashed into the club. When he came out, Coltherst told police, Johnson put a gun to his head. They ordered him into the back seat. They took his wallet and ATM card and stopped at a bank before pulling over on a highway entrance ramp.

They got out. Coltherst began tossing out books and other items of the man's belongings. He thought they would leave the victim by the side of the road.

``I looked over and watched as Carl shot the guy in the back of the head at point-blank range,'' the court officer at Hartford Superior Court read aloud.

Kyle Holden, 30, died instantly. Despite a massive police search, his body remained on a grassy embankment until Coltherst and Johnson, arrested 10 days later, told police where to look.

Holden's father, Jack, who had seemed to miss barely a moment of testimony, sitting through even jury selection, walked out with his wife Monday as their son's final moments were described.

Coltherst, now 18, is the first of the two teenagers to face trial. The prosecutor, Dennis O'Connor, need not prove who pulled the trigger to secure convictions on charges of capital felony, which would put Coltherst in prison for life.

The statement entered into evidence Monday was perhaps the most damaging piece of evidence in four days of testimony by prosecution witnesses. The state had already placed Coltherst in the car in the days after the slaying, linked him to a .22-caliber handgun and established that a live bullet was found when Holden's coupe was finally recovered.

Defense attorney Donald O'Brien tried to keep those statements from coming before the jury, arguing that investigators violated his client's rights. Having lost that bid, he went after the police in front of the jury, grilling state police Det. Timothy Webster for admittedly ripping up Coltherst's first statement.

``That's not what you wanted to hear, what was in that first statement, that's why you ripped it up. Isn't that correct,'' O'Brien asked.

Webster testified that Coltherst asked him to tear up the statement, which made no mention of the car-jacking or slaying, so he could give a more truthful account, once Webster told him another youth had contradicted the initial statement.

Webster testified that Coltherst gave the third and final statement after having been told that details in his second statement had been contradicted.

Through his questions, O'Brien also suggested that Webster implicitly threatened his client during the interrogation.

``Detective, isn't it true that you, in fact, had your handgun with you and you slammed it on the table and you said, `You're going to go away for the rest of your life'?'' he asked.

Webster testified that he did no such thing, and said that doing so would have jeopardized his own safety as well as that of other officers since Coltherst was not handcuffed at the time.

Webster is expected to again take the stand when the trial resumes today.